Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Now, Bunt! Giants 2, Dodgers 1

In the seventh, with men on first and second, Juan Uribe dropped a bunt that stopped rolling two feet in front of the plate. Buster Posey easily completed a 1-6-3 double play to end the inning.

In the eighth, Bobby Abreu got a pinch hit walk, and then Dee Gordon issued a bunt single to put men on first and second. That one, surprisingly, worked. But then...

Mark Ellis sac bunted them to second and third with Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier coming up. What to do if you're Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong? Why, the answer is obvious: take the bat out of Kemp's hand with an intentional pass, and take your chances with Ethier. Ethier grounded into a double play, and that was that.

The bunt is the stupidest percentage play in baseball, and these were reminiscent of some of Jim Tracy's idiotic games. (Aside: for those wanting to relive the misery of that era in Dodger baseball, Chris Jaffe earlier did a nice review of his career that's well worth reading.)

The best we can say about this game is that Vogelsong was on his game, but Kershaw's was a little less good. The Dodgers generally failed to cash in with runners in scoring position, getting only one hit in eight tries. Kershaw's winning streak comes to an end at five. Bleh.

Update:Chad Moriyama has more, including animated GIFs of the carnage and play-by-play win expectation percentages. Just ugly.